Teachers of Dine Language and Culture Building Enduring Systems of Support

In response to the question, “How do we build enduring systems of support for our children within our classrooms and communities?” we examined the learning logs of Dine teachers in a graduate course: Foundations of Bilingual Multicultural Education. We asked, “Who are you now? How will you continue to grow and develop professionally? How does your understanding of history, research and current practice in the field of Navajo education inform and improve your own teaching and learning?” We attempted to gain a sense of the whole from this rich data source which focuses on concrete events in the stories of the participants, listening for the unique stories of how teachers learned to value their language and why they continue to teach it, exploring the institutions of literacy and power in which teachers work and live. Each teacher understands the history of language teaching in a different way; each teacher passes this understanding on to her students in a different way. The texts of the reading logs challenged and moved our thinking as researchers beyond our understanding when this process began.